


The Taste of    Tragedy

by 0Locke



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Disabled Character, F/F, Prosthetics, Slow Build, Slow Burn, hints of depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-11-11 01:23:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11138424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Locke/pseuds/0Locke
Summary: Rey and Kylo Ren come to another crossroad in their lives, and they both learn to cope with a tragedy in their own way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Hobbitbabe for showing me the way when I felt lost. Thank you ❤️

The collusion of blades left resounding sparks of blues and reds between the dark lord and the scavenger, and with every slash and deflection came the hissing of heat and energy.

Rey shoved first and Kylo shoved back and this continued with every breath and step of the way. One blade close to skin and one blade too far. One blade had been deflected and the other swayed forward. The two duelists had danced about on the battlefield with their motley of tan and black fabrics swirling amongst one another, and all eyes focused on the striking gleams of their beautiful light that had cracked between.

Their sabers came into a standstill at angled wrists, the humming was amplified as the light of the blades condemn themselves into a single position between the force sensitives. The ground shook around their displays of true power, the harmonizing balance of the grey force outlined in the passion of the dark and the benevolence of the light. As blinding as it may be, it was quite the beautiful sight to both the First Order and the Resistance.

Ren was now refined in every sort, be he an assailant of the mind or a beast on the battlefield. He was not an enemy one might seek to challenge and Rey knew no advantages would bless her a second win. She was afraid to say it, but she knew she’d been lucky and lucky throughout that day. Nothing in her life had ever gone that well for her and now as fate would have it, mother mercy was seeking a price for all she’d been given.

He ground his primal blade against hers and it was a bold attempt to prove that his crafted saber was better than his own grandfathers—the saber he sought for so diligently. Rey blinked in irritation and realized the angle of his own saber grew too focused on the base, as if he were trying to rupture his own grandfathers blade because it had once destroyed his own.

His mask was washed in hues of mostly red and his eyes were hidden behind a seemingly endless void of blackness. The mask was too expressionless and too hard to read for Rey—a chance at claiming victory against _this_ Kylo Ren was slowly dwindling away. Right now, as the young Padawan saw it, fighting against this unemotional droid was considerably more difficult than with the boy she’d confronted years ago.

_You’re just a boy._

As if he were responding to that thought, her wrist flicked back painfully and unable to bear the weight of his muscle and height. She quickly sidestepped and shaved her saber from his unyielding grip, cinders of heat feathered away from the motion of their blades. She lightly tapped the ground around him which then forced the Dark Sider to turn away from the imprisoned rebels. She wanted it that way. In any case were she to dodge one of his attacks and it were to be directed towards her friends, she wouldn't be able to forgive herself.

No one had uttered a word, not a sound from either side of opposition. They had all held their breath as witnesses to their final solitary battle represented by a lone member of each side. The First Order impatiently waited for their Dark Lord to finish off the Padawan while the Resistance silently pleaded for their heroine to succeed.

_You’re just a scavenger._

She heard this in the back of her mind and wondered whether it came from him.

Then came another whistling screech of lightsabers, and until that point she that she had almost gained the upper hand. Until she didn’t have it anymore. Their bodies grew close, their gravity thrusting each other at the will of the mind. Their faces neared while their forms remained stagnant at a counterbalanced stance. They listened to each other thoroughly and looked for any weaknesses. Their robes wildly whipped against each other's brutal power. Their opposing force clashing and refusing to give in to the other like yin and yang. Her own light saber sounded refined. Cultured.  _Pure_. His sounded raw.  _Primal_. Like a cat purring.

Through the blackness of his mask Rey could tell he’d been staring her down. Kylo Ren stepped forward, his foot crunching against the destroyed and crippled metal of several fighter planes. Rey mimicked and stepped back, this continued until she realized how dangerously close the Stormtroopers were at her back.

“Stop _pushing_ me,” Rey fussed through her full teeth, glancing backward and then back at Ren frequently during their heated battle. Although her legs were in a stance meant to stabilize her form, her knees were slowly giving way against his enormity. 

Had her years of training not been enough? Had she been too eager to become the heroine? The one who saved the innocent from the evil?

The mechanical grinding of Kylo's arm filled her ears and she felt the slow forced descent of her frame to the ground. He was gaining the upper hand. It was Rey's mistake to fight the brute of a man on open ground, as she excelled primarily in her agility and nimble exploitation of terrain.

“Surrender yourself Scavenger,” Ren’s husk voice demanded shortly after, and Rey felt him rummage inside her mind.

“Get _out_ of my head,” Rey wore on and her own light clashed and sparked against his eerily ominous one, her hand purposefully aiming away from his cross guarded hilt so that she wouldn't be seared through by one of its side handles.

Her catlike eyes seemed more brightly green than hazel as it reflected in the colorful blend of lightsabers. She seemed worn down. Tired and unwilling to let this fight go on for any longer than it should. Her hair looked as though it hadn’t worn its three-bun style in months, but rather a long and grown out braid that peeked out from the small of her back.

“It’s easy to explore amidst the obstruction of battle. You leave yourself unwound well enough to read you as a scroll,” through the mask his voice rumbled.

“My mind is _not_ a scroll for you to r—” Rey stammered in her sentence as she found herself between the heat of a blade and the heat of a blaster bullet. The pain roll into her back, and through her stomach and through her skin, Rey paused at the almost paralyzing sensation and surrendered herself entirely to it. Her body crashed to the ground and her saber hilt roll away, deactivated and painstakingly out of her grasp.

The roaring burning sensation made her cry aloud and crinkle in her agony. Rey had never felt something so agonizing in her life and she’d grown quite a thick skin for the entirety of it. The young Padawan’s breathing increased exponentially and sweat beads formed at the roots of her hairline.

Kylo Ren towered over her in just as submissive confusion as she and watched with a silence that seemed all too unpredictive. She glared up at him with narrowed hazel eyes and a complexion far too pale for anyone physically hale and hearty. His mask glared down at her several moments and felt visibly or invisibly upset.

Rey soon believed him to be a man of honorable victory, and this was not an honorable victory.

He then geared his attention to someone probably behind her, unclicking his cross guard when he realized what had just transpired. His body curled forward and was ready to devour whomever dared to interrupt. Rey had witnessed this all with her mind processing things far too slowly now, clutching at her abdomen and the blood leaking far too well for her to handle.

_Was this how it ends?_

Rey watched Kylo Ren step past with thudding boots and toward whomever it was behind her, she felt her life would not be sole in its departure from the world today. The young Padawan followed his movements with her dreary eyes. Her life was slowly beating itself out of her body with every drop of blood.

_Was this kind of life worth it?_

The fabric against her wound soon became heavily mudded with blood, pooling around her palm and licking its way to the stony ground. Her breathing became ragged. Her eyelids became heavy and her body became a useless puppet without an inkling of self-drive to move on its own.

_Is this what happens when I try to bring peace to the world?_

Rey’s shoulders veered over and the rest of her came with them. The sky turned to its side and she could see the army of white situated from behind. She could see her lightsaber hilt that had rolled several feet away from her finger tips. Kylo Ren was moving toward one of them, she could see all now fading away in her blurred vision.

_Is this what I deserve?_

…

Rey woke with dreadful sensations in her stomach, a roaring migraine in her head, and numbness in her limbs. She hadn’t felt this out of touch with herself since she’d been ambushed by thieves on Jakku one mistaken night. But this was worse. She had people to look up to and people to lose.

Rey glanced around. It didn’t look like the Resistance, she assumed herself to be captured and held as a hostage in the First Order. It was a medical bay none too large as it’d been occupied by the only bed she lay in. It was more of a patient’s private room filled with stale air and a sole operator. Right beside her was a droid bustling around equipment on a tray. Scuffling her eyebrows, Rey wondered why she was still alive and what chain of events had led her to this place.

The young Padawan craned her neck down at her abdomen to see gauze neatly wrapped around her wound; blood already soaked through and left an imprint. It needed to be changed.

“I need more gauze,” Rey murmured timidly and her voice croaked more than she wanted it to. One droid coined in place to examine its human patient. Apparently, it wasn’t sure if it was to take commands from anyone unless they were an officer of the First Order.

“Do not speak to her, droid,” commanded a mask-muffled voice at the doorway. Strangely, Kylo Ren stood like the giant he was, peaceably and intent on dealing no harm. Anytime soon for that matter.

“It was going to change my bandages. What’s wrong with that?” Rey twisted her head away from the voice as best she could, knowing full well her hair was a tangled and an unpleasant mess. She didn’t want to face the enemy because _he_ was mostly the reason she was here. “Couldn’t you have used bacta to heal me more quickly? I know full well you wanted a rematch.”

“I’m surprised you know what bacta is.” The rumbling voice inquired, seemingly avoiding most of what she had said.

“Right, because I’m _just_ a scavenger.” Rey found herself muttering the words less viciously than she’d wanted to sound. What was she to do now that he’d captured her a second time, familiar with the scope of her capabilities? Is it the fact that the resistance could be dead at this very moment? Was the reality of her own death creeping upon her so gradually she’d come to accept it? She didn’t know exactly what to think but feel momentously weak in her own defeat.

“And yes, you’re right. I did want a rematch,” she could feel the pressure in the room change and that Kylo Ren had entered it, disregarding any form of permission. “If you’d like to know what happened, I’d be happy to enlighten you.”

“I never thought of you to be happy,” the young Padawan retorted with another crack to her voice. She didn’t see herself sounding so weak, ever in her life. Pain continued to swell in her abdomen but she clenched her fists away at it. “About anything.”

“A Stormtrooper struck from behind, as a coward would have,” Ren continued with distaste swimming in his tone. It felt extremely strange to have an enemy like him at her backside. The young Padawan wondered why she hadn’t bothered to watch his every move despite her existing conditions, “you should realize I never meant to kill you.”

She wondered why his tone felt so empathetic.

“Right, you because were also trying to get inside my head,” Rey bit back. There was a hint of resentment that’d been building up over the years, “because you’d either slice someone’s body or their mind to smithereens. You’re just angry you haven’t fully gotten ahold of me yet.”

She could sense irritation bubbling up and she’d been right to assume he’d harbored a temper. 

Rey began with another venomous question, “do you want to know what happened after you killed your own father?”

Rey could tell his face was contorting with anger and even with that blank slate of a mask it wasn’t hard to decipher how he felt. For some inexplicable reason, she didn’t expect him to do anything to her while she lay like this. He was erratically quiet and she could sense his body remain painfully still. She knew he wanted to do _something_.

She gripped at the sheet spread below her body, as if it were going to help her from this monster in any way. She eventually found her ears moving to a source of purring, a crimson saber had woken with liveliness and it certainly meant to expel a certain rage on the nearest object; this happened to be the poor medical droid standing beside Rey. The sound of electrical discharge and the sizzling of metal reached her ears and she turned to the source of it.

Rey watched him raise his cross guard in a subsequent attempt to dismember the surgical droid. He stopped midway he calmed himself while taking a deep breath. He deactivated his light blade once again and quickly stormed out of the room with not a shred of desire to look back at the force sensitive scavenger.

She churned her head down to the mutilated droid as best she could and thought that maybe, maybe this was her fault. _No_ , this wasn’t her fault at all. He was spoiled child who never learned how to deal with consequences of his actions. He was a too irresponsible for the powers that be blessed upon him.

While this had come to pass, Rey found her breath in motion again and her heartbeat had been slamming her chest as if it wanted to escape and never come back. She let her mind become tranquil as Luke had always enquired her to, when she let her mind wander too far into the fear that hid in her own heart. She lay back down, her wispy hazelnut hair twisting around the back of her head and her lips feeling dryer now that she had nothing left to say.

…

Rey basked in her own silence that night, apart from a few mechanical buzzes and formalities of the next medical droid that had taken care of her. Before here, the last memory she could recall was the vague sight of Kylo Ren and his mask looming over hers, a dark silhouette against a background of stark luminescence. His firm shoulders shifting back and forth as he paced along and clawed tightly in her outer leg, as if she were slipping out of his hands. This was nothing more than a snippet to her. It was a drifting blur of waxing and waning vision.

Air licked at her exposed hands and she felt her cloak billowing behind Kylo Ren as he briskly carried her through the halls. She heard the scattered voices of various men, women, beast, animal, and technology and anything she could comprehend. The sweet, sweet state of unconsciousness was calling to her. Yet she could feel Ren at the back of her mind and he was constantly probing hers in such an incessant curiosity that she could not drift fully asleep even if she wanted to. The pain was there. It wasn't just a memory. An event so authentic that it left its mark on her body and it was a reminder to Rey that she was living a truth.

She remembered the irritating brightness as it cascaded down from a row of rafter lights, a building or vehicle that seemed too large to have such a high ceiling. It existed nonetheless. Despite the sudden epiphany, Rey couldn't have combatted Ren while he held her so tightly in his arms and she’d been so close to kissing death on the lips. And then she recalled how often her mind grappled with his while being in a daze and she felt Kylo Ren subtly steer her into a regenerative coma.

Did he carry her here?

The strange sensation is something she’d experienced maybe once before; a faint feeling of déjà vu rose in the back of her thoughts.

Rey grew tired of lying there and wallowing in her own muse. She moved suddenly and ripped away at her gauze and it relit a fire of pain in her stomach and then her spine. She felt creeping numbness overtake her lower body.

_Oh no…_

She regretted moving at all.

“Droid…”Rey whispered as best she could, “Droid…please. I need assist…ance.”

Another surgical droid that Ren had called for later that day, veered its way toward its human patient. Soon it began working on her, using a cloth to staunch the wound while it injected an analgesic drug into her body. She felt the pain washing away from her cavity despite feeling nothing at all in her legs.

The droid replaced the soaked cloth with a clean replacement. It soon addressed its human, “be careful not to move. You’ll risk extreme paralysis.”

“Is that what’s going on?” Rey fought back the tears, craning her chin toward the procedure on her body. “Please, please,” it was the combination of drugs and the thought of losing feeling in half of her body that made her frantic. “No… this…this can’t happen. Please help me—“

“You must stay calm.” The droid monotonously reminded her, “I must successfully perform this procedure.”

When Rey said she’d never felt so sullen with her life earlier and well… this was it. This was a new low. Her eyelids drifted to rest. Why was she closing her eyes?  She couldn’t fall asleep yet.  She felt angry and almost pitied herself for the way her life had taken its course.

Was this the doing of a higher being?  Or had she come to an end from her own fault? Her thoughts soon became hysterical and she felt her breathing heighten and it was loud enough where it was the only thing she could focus on. 

Rey opened her eyes and noticed a massive black creature standing at her bedside. His mask was nowhere in near sight and he’d been glaring down at her like she’d been departing from the world already.

“Here to personally witness me in my own death bed?” Rey asked, with sweat coating her cream skin and tears ready to roll down her cheeks. She whispered to him with rarely any spite in her voice, “Go on. Watch. I know how often you wanted to see me like this.”

His dark eyebrows crinkled inward as if there was a constant battle in that expressive mind of his. His eyes reflected sorrow and Rey thought that maybe she’d been hallucinating things.

“Place her in a bacta tank,” Ren commanded and there was something deeply conflictive in the way he said it, “do it now!”

Rey felt herself slipping away, lost in the world of unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers! Welcome to my new slow-burn fic that I wish to update regularly. I've been thinking and decided to revamp my previous story and turn it into this one. I would love to know your thoughts, enjoy!


	2. Swaying Thoughts

Kylo Ren watched his scavenger freeze in her own breath and collapse as if some other force had stolen the life from her own finger tips. She cried out as the blast rung through her back and came to rest inside her body, she clutched herself in the wound and glared up at him with the most severe expression he’d ever seen.

A flare of emotion was sent his way and he felt himself unable to conduct these feelings he sensed from her. The connection between them was pulsing as if it were a heartbeat as if it were his own—her heartbeat— struggling to keep its host alive. Then it weakened. He watched her hazel eyes flutter slightly as she turned to look up at him. Ren felt his wrath wanting to expose itself and it was to be unleashed with an exacting vengeance.

He sauntered toward the poor soul that strike the scavenger and the trooper stood there with his arm suspended, shaking as he lowered it. The Dark Lord could sense the fear and regret emanating from the trooper. He thought to relish in the feeling as he stole the breath from his body. Opening his palm like a blossoming flower, the force raised his body several feet above the ground. He managed to sputter only a few syllables as he clutched at his throat in desperation.

“You’ve made a grave mistake,” he rumbled through his mask. “Now you’re going to pay for it with your life.” Kylo Ren’s hand, an extension of himself now, continued to squelch the air out of the trooper’s throat and raise him even higher for dramatic effect. Another minute passed before the Stormtrooper lay lifeless in the hands of the Dark Side of the Force. He let his body drop to the ground with a sickening thud and gave a promising threat to anyone else.

“Does anyone else wish to interrupt?”

They all stood affirmatively and in a collective response they answered. “No, sir.”

“Good.” Ren said as he commanded the troopers, “I expect you to get rid of this mess.”

Ren, a massive black phantom, had drifted off to the Scavenger who’d been almost in complete surrender to her own system of comatose. Or death. He didn’t wait to see which it ended up being. He clasped her underside and the back of her knees to securely strap her against his chest. Those that hadn’t carried the dead Stormtrooper off, were watching their commander and clearly his actions had bubbled some kind of perplexity.

“What are you waiting for? Seize the rebels,” his voice hummed through the mask and dissipated throughout the range of the battlefield. He commanded his troops with his back to them and his attention geared on a certain force-sensitive. Several troopers jogged past their commander and collected Resistance rebels, shoving them onto a transport shuttle to never be seen again.

Ren looked down at her pitiful state and quickly he gathered that she be transferred to a medical bay. She wouldn’t last long if her wound left untreated.  

As he watched the surgical droid work on the Scavenger, impatiently he sealed the door shut with a punch of security codes. She was breathing heavily; her lips would open and wouldn’t stop creasing during sudden skewering pain. He knew she was crippling within herself and he could feel its remnants resounding through a faint bond.

He looked at her trembling hands, they were bandaged in training gauze. There was an arm guard on each side and an elementary tan uniform that every Padawan in the Jedi Academy had worn. Her fingers and palms appeared as if they were used in light saber lessons every day she’d been on that island.

She looked so open and vulnerable the way she lay—examining her would prove nothing too fatal. Such a powerful force sensitive and yet here she was, fighting for the right to live. He could tell she’d never experienced something like this and that this kind of sensation was distant and inexplicable.  

She _truly_ thought she was going to die.

He watched the girl with an oppressive curiosity and neared her heaving body. He was closer than he wanted himself to be. Some blood was cauterized by the heat of the blaster shot yet it hadn’t been enough to seal the wound; it began soaking through the bandages and the droid continually replaced and bullied into her skin. It had her turned over on her side to tend to both entrance and exit of the wound.

He didn’t realize how deadly things like this were. How feeble it seemed to him and his power. Without warning and without heed and here the scavenger was—bloodier than he’d ever seen her.

“Master Ren.” The droid was watching its master with an ignorance that irritated Ren enough, “the bacta tank may be our final option. If you wish the girl to heal more quickly—”

“I know she will,” growled he. “Not yet,” Ren felt unsure if this would be the right decision. He wanted her to grow from this kind of pain and build strength in overcoming it. “If she is as strong as the Scavenger from my visions then so be it—let her abilities take their own course and I will see what happens.”

He waited three years. This long and he’d waited for the opportune moment to strike when right—no. He wouldn’t strike when fate allows it, but under _his_ circumstances and under _his_ control would he create the right conditions to capture the scavenger.

She was out there in the open, a heroine amidst a swarm of enemies and she dare not flee. He knew what type of person she was. He had only wanted the storm troopers to fire at the rebels, to draw out Rey. He realized that the only way to pull her out from hiding was to attack her dear friends and loved ones.

And now he’d been far too close to lose the only force sensitive being in the universe—at least one that even he slightly abided by.

He was too close.

He let himself wander _too_ close and forced several footsteps back so that he collided with the entrance. He collided with himself as well.

…

Rey woke feeling numb. It was as if her body parts had been replaced with new machinery and they hadn’t been working properly. She realized the feeling in her legs hadn’t been there and it soured her mood severely—a migraine sprouting its way in the back of her skull.    

“You’ve been here for several days already, Scavenger.” A voice peered through her solemn silence, “Had I known you’d have been this fragile, I—“

“You never would have searched for me?” Rey answered for him, finally, “that you would have killed me off the moment you find me a liability?”   

He watched with that impassive mask of his and said nothing. She had a feeling he wanted to say something but the words had never left his mouth—or his mask for that matter. 

Rey thrusted her chest forward and laid her weight on the base of her elbows, her long braid coiled around the nape of her neck. She looked down at her stomach and an unpleasant discoloring of branded skin and fresh blood painted the gauze. Its appearance was more hideous than it was painful, however.

Rey softly started again, “come to think of it, why is it that I’m alive? Why are you keeping me here?” She knew her fate would soon be a saber with her heart as its sheath or even less mercifully would be an end by means of the Force. A _Dark_ Force.

He simply gave her every moment of attention and she felt crippled under the weight of his stare—be he masked or unmasked. She was going to die soon and he was surely contemplating it.

“I’m not going to kill you.” He answered for her, and paced along the foot of the bed and entwined his hand behind his back, “you are here as my guest.”

“Guest? I’m your guest in this sorry state?” She felt her breath catching in her throat during a momentary pause, “what use am I to you? What could I possibly provide?”

She could see a twitch in his shoulder before he answered her again.

“I have news to share with you,” he said while ignoring her pleas, the animosity of that mask was all she could focus on and it was simultaneously something she could latch herself to. Everything else inside this room had overlain her muse in restless monotony and boredom.

“I’m alive?” She spewed sarcastically.

“You survived the procedure. Yes, you _are_ alive.” He repeated her word; she felt him gentle and less than intimidating than he’d portrayed himself a few days ago. Though the softness was coupled with pity and a sense of sorrow, as if he were delivering bad news to a dying patient. “Alive and well.” He repeated himself and with less sincerity, “though I cannot say the same for the rest of you.”

Her eyes shot toward him, and she felt her breath rise too sharply for her cavity to handle.

“You are… paralyzed from the waist down.” He said it so disparagingly as he himself believed that this couldn’t have happened.

“Paralyzed…” Rey repeated. She felt the coldness of reality numb her senses. Her mind swirled and thought of every possibility. Of how this happened. Of how she could have avoided it. At first, she couldn’t accept his words. Now that she considered how unresponsive her body had been—it had all come together in her mind. If she thought her existence meaningless, then she didn’t truly realize that up until that moment, everything had truly been stripped away from her. It was something far more precious than petty allegiances—it was her _freedom_.

“As we fought, the blaster shot penetrated your spinal cord, damaging it inconclusively—”

_Spinal cord…_

Rey glared at him so intensely she felt her eyes sting with dryness.

And just like that, with one ill-fated strike the entirety of her life had been stolen

 “I know what that means—“  Rey quickly bit back with the skin of teeth and she felt the wetness of her tears roll down her cheek. Her shoulders and arms were now buckling under the weight of her chest and she sunk inwardly in defeat.

What had she done to deserve this? Why… why does misfortune always greet her on her doorstep like this? Anguish settled snugly in her chest. He seemed disappointed to have lost a personal possession or have something valuable to him damaged. She wanted his obsession with to cease finally, to lay waste and let her sleep peacefully.

**…**

Several days had come to pass and Rey found herself contemplating suicide, the thoughts were transient and vanished as soon as she’d blinked.

“Why haven’t you eaten any of your meals?” Kylo Ren questioned the young Padawan as he slipped through the entrance, his helmet tucked neatly at his underside. He entered a series of codes to seal the entrance shut. Presumably to have his privacy with her. As new air filtered through the room, he carried a scent of smoked sandalwood.

It was strangely pleasant.

 “I,” she mumbled softly. It felt strange discussing her past with the likes of him. She felt disgusted but carried on her conversation. “I don’t have much of an appetite. I’d have long lost myself to starvation and thirst before turning thirteen.”

“More than three days without eating? On that junkyard of a planet? Surely you’d have found something and sold it for spoils.” He remained stagnant as he observed her and then he placed his helmet at her bedside table with a gentle clang. It felt strange having him comment on her home as if he held some place in understanding with her. “You should eat,” he politely instructed.

“I’ll pass on that today.” A harsh retort on her lips, “why feed someone who is going to be disabled for the rest of their life anyway?”

“You’ve become quite the pragmatist since I’ve last known you.”

“Yeah?” Rey found herself growing irritated with the apparent lack of formalities. They weren’t friends and they never were going to be. He was the enemy and that’s all he will ever be. “The door is that way. Or you could use your saber and end it right _now_.”

“I didn’t come here to discuss how I plan to end you—“

“So you were going to kill me anyway?” Not a care and not a consideration as to how crippled she appeared.

She wanted to feel. She was trapped. She felt isolated more than she’d ever been on Jakku. She decided to vent her anger into something else now. Something less wretched.

“You killed that Storm Trooper,” Rey murmured through the silence; resting herself fully on the mattress and her sight would not escape the vents and lighting fixtures of the ceiling.  “Didn’t you?”

“I did.” His voice melted in her ears. “Either way you would’ve wanted him dead.”

“I wouldn’t have.” Pleats of hazelnut hair began to form as she shook her head, “you’re just as bad as they come. As they say—“

“As they say?”

“I’ve heard several things about you—about Kylo Ren. You’re willing to murder your own people over the simplest of matters.”

“This wasn’t a simple matter.” Rey caught his eyes and they were a molten russet brown; she allowed her gaze to wander to the ceiling again. For a moment—for one solitary moment—she thought he cared about her. “This wasn’t simple at all and you should realize the great lengths I’ve taken to find you.”

“Find me and then what? Detain me in this _sorry_ state? You’re only keeping me alive because you want to rip the force out of m—”

And before she could finish anything else she wanted to say, she heard him draw out a lowly snort.

“What?” She asked and he was glaring at her like she had said the most incredulous thing.

“The Force...it doesn’t work that way.” He murmured and pulled off a sleek glove from one hand. She watched him levitate the fabric above his dominant hand, the force being used so meekly by the likes of him. “Didn’t your master teach you anything?”

“He taught me to avoid people like you—“

“Like me? Like his _nephew_?”

“Yes. And how his nephew destroyed his life’s work and legacy. Do you understand what it feels like to be betrayed like that?” Of course, Master Luke had never said such things specifically but she felt it. From him she felt how torn and broken down he was. The spite was on her tongue, hate and spoon-fed disgust for Kylo Ren, “to be turned back on in such a way you would resort to isolate yourself? And wallow in your own failures?”

 “Unfortunately, that is something that I _do_ understand.”

She felt the anger rise to her cheeks and she stared him down and felt no inclination to break the contact. “Kriffing scum. You don’t understand anything—you’re just a spoiled brat who’d had everything handed down to him. And then what? You repay that kind of kindness with a saber to your own father’s heart?”

He did not stir and the force flickered in a way she felt something off-tilt. Was it a nuance of regret? She didn’t know. She could feel something but didn’t know _what_ it was. The levitating glove landed back into his palm.

As if he were avoiding the former subject matter altogether he started with an exasperated tone, “going back on what I said earlier—it _is_ possible to exhaust someone of their ability to use the Force. An ability as old as Sith themselves. That, however, is something lost to the workings of time.”

She found no problem continuing with this kind of conversation with him and maybe, discussing his own patricide might lead to rather nasty consequences. “Didn’t you say ‘ _the Force can’t do that’_? And now it can?”

“Just as someone can use the Force to heal others and one-self, in a way they may use it strip away at their connection. But never fully severing it.”

Rey was silent, pondering these words. Luke had never mentioned something as drastic as this and she was left to her own conclusions about the Dark Side. _The Sith._

“And even more—their life. Their sustenance.”

Her breath refused to drive through her lungs and she found herself contemplating how it felt to do something like that to someone. Intentionally. She shuttered a groan and realized that maybe her medication had been dissipating already.

He stood from the lurch of his chair and departed for the medicine chest that held every kind of pain-killer there was on this ship. Was he going to drug her? Where was her medical droid?

“This kind of ability isn’t something you can learn,” he paused with his sculpted back facing away from her. “You experience _this_ kind of darkness before you learn to wield it. And you can’t read incantations from a textbook. There are no Sith and there are no Jedi masters who will lend their wise words—“

Rey looked at him in a way and in a certain kind of curiosity. “But you prefer to kill the old-fashioned way.” Rey interjected, “isn’t that right?”

“I do.” Ren said, “it is thrilling. It powers you—“

“Well thankfully I have other unpleasant things to look forward to,” Rey sighed and shifted herself so that her wounds would not be scraping against the mattress sheets. “Go on and kill me the old-fashioned way then. Since it thrills you.”

“You will receive no such treatment,” she’d heard him put that glove back on, “you are here as my guest.”

Her momentary peace was uplifted when she felt the head rest of her bed further and the groaning of the bed reached her ears. She cast her eyes to the Ren holding a call-light remote, working with its buttons and other special functions. Rey was genuinely confused with the way he was treating her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to call for someone to feed you,” he casually explained, placing the remote right beside her dominant hand. His glove lightly brushed against her skin, a shiver ran over her entire arm.

“Call them then.” The cripple muttered disdainfully and she looked away from him in disgust. 

Rey had grown tired of looking at Ren’s face. The shape of his face, black hair and eyes were a perfect mix of his parents. When she looked at him, there was a stern and calculating look that resembled his father all too well. And when they rest, she could see the honey brown eyes that came from his mother.

She’d like to think he was a monster, but these thoughts continue to sway and fade every day he’d come to visit her. 

“You’re either going to have a nurse or a protocol droid come feed you.” His voice rolled low and softly, drowning in a sense of sorry for the scavenger, “the choice is yours.”

“Neither.” Rey concluded with an unforgiving tone, “it’s not like I’ve ever had a choice with you anyway.”

She could feel him glaring down at her with a harsh gaze. It was harder to fight this man with the way he looked at her—he’d put his all into everything. He was passionate in his Dark Side and the Dark Side had thrived in him.

Rey side-eyed him for a moment before boring her gaze into the wall straight ahead. He doesn’t deserve her respect. He was still waiting with arms built ready at his sides. What was he going to do? Torture her into submission?

“Rey,” she felt Kylo Ren near her now, her name in his voice made her feel uncomfortable. This was the first he’d said it. She didn’t know what was worse, him calling her name of the fact that half of her body was in rolling agony.

She felt an unyielding grip on her jaw which tore her gaze away from a solid point and up to his. Pain skulked where his fingers pressed and even more had been the heat in her cheeks—the pain of crippling embarrassment before the enemy.

“I am not your enemy here.” He said, and again, “I have never been your enemy. I am here to teach you. Mend you and show you the wonders of the universe that you’ve yet to learn. You were fascinated by the things I’ve told you and now you want me to end your life?”

She didn’t know what to feel. 

“Someone is going to hold you like this,” he tended to her face so that she would look at him, “while they shove tubes through your nose. Feedings like this exist so that people can receive the necessary sustenance for the day. Is this how you want to live?”

Slapping away his hand, she fought hard to hold back the tears. It felt disparaging knowing that life was going to be like this from now on. If she had to choose, it would be the perilous life of a desert scavenger over a disabled slave of the First Order. She would choose it in several lifetimes if she had to.

She just wanted her legs back.

“Don’t call anyone.” Rey swallowed away the something that collected in the back of her throat. She dared not to look at him when she requested solitude, “just leave me be.”

Ren presumably agreed with the request and left the untouched tray of food at her bedside. The untouched pills were beside her headrest. The young woman broke down in tears as soon as the door sealed shut, realizing how disconnected she was from herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to know your thoughts!


	3. Broken Mind and Broken Body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter get's pretty heavy in the feels. Brace yourself!

It was nearing her twelfth night and she had yet to recover from the paralysis.

Kylo Ren felt himself heavily responsible for the girl. She was his intended apprentice and now because of his own lack of discretion, he’d stolen her sense of independence. The idea of bathing Rey in the bacta tank sounded preposterous. Now that he’d witnessed the consequences, he had wrung himself dry from regret.

He wanted her to do this on her own. He wanted to see these capabilities

His heart wrenched painfully inside to see her like this. He could hear her sobs as he approached her door the subsequent nights but stayed away as she lay awake. He watched her sleep several times throughout the night; although intensive care and a mindful eye was not quite necessary he couldn’t help but continue with these habits. Their thread of connection was something he decided to focus on, but stopped after he realized how uncomfortable it felt to probe someone’s unconscious mind.

_Why had he felt so attached to her?_

In his dreams were vivid illustrations, though far too realistic for something he could have seen anywhere. Long ago he had realized he was looking through the eyes of someone else and living the life of some other being. Someone he had continually observed throughout his nights and felt himself more settled. They were more pleasant than anything he’d ever experienced, as if he were watching a film with contraptions constructed to send every sensation and experience as if it had been his own life.

Glancing at his commlink, he had noticed the time was trickling away and he should probably leave. She would be waking up soon. He stood from his chair, donned his helmet and left her to her own solitude.

He was a commander of the First Order. He had duties to fulfill and he had to fulfill them well.

…

"Kylo Ren." His severely drawn out voice vibrated in the air despite being a holographic projection.

Ren stood in silence as he waited for Snoke to acknowledge his accomplishment over such a crucial mission. The singular light shining directly onto his pedestal was one that gave a blue sheen to the contours of his clothing and artificially plated features.

"You've managed to convince the young scavenger to join us?"

Almost as if it were muffled, his voice buzzed through his helmet with great respect to the figure before him. "Yes, Master. Although she is severely injured."

"Injured?" The Supreme Leader leaned forward on intertwined knuckles, “explain to me.”

The metalwork in Kylo’s mask glistened as he followed his movements, “she is withstanding injuries great enough to disable her legs. I am working on a solution to fix this.”

He cackled quietly and continued to interrupt his pupil, “it seems she is more trouble than you deem her to be worth. How do you intend to find a solution?”

"She is strong with the Force.” Ren strangely found himself complimenting Rey again, “she has the capabilities to heal herself. From this I see that she will evolve and grow, and this tragedy will give her a reason to seek the Dark Side and all of its appeal.”

Kylo's hands were neatly entwined behind his back and they remained in position as he nodded in approval. His silence told Ren that their conversation was going to head in another direction.

“I sense your grief,” the voice croaked toward him, Ren’s fears were exposed to his master without any hope of secrecy. “I can also sense your fear for her—Kylo Ren. You confuse your desire to train her with compassion. You must discern from these two things.”

“I understand.” The mask he’d adorned himself did well to conceal his emotions, but he did nothing to conceal his true feelings from a true Dark Side wielder such as he.

“I hope to see your influence take root in the girl,” the Supreme image gradually fading from existence, “and I trust that you will care for the girl, as I have taken care of  _you_."

“Master…” Kylo motioned with a respectful bow and waited for him to fade into the light. He was glad this briefing was condensed and sweet; though it did not fall short of doubt and suspicion.

…

Her body folded sharply as if she were sitting on an extended armchair. Kylo had been sitting across the room and in his own personal bubble. She felt he’d come to see her on these personal visits and outside that door he constructed a mask of cruel indifference. He’d always remove that helmet and put it back on whenever he left.

Rey found it in herself to ask Kylo Ren about that ancient Sith ability—where one could drain either the Force or the life of some poor unfortunate soul. And she wondered, if he wasn’t capable of this then how could he possibly know about it?

“Finished with your skulking now, are we?” Ren asked. He continued however, “I’ve read stories of people like Darth Bane…Nihilus…Revan. And many others. My grandfather’s castle was a mine of Sith legends. Stories of my predecessors creative and powerful alike. People would question whether they had existed or not, yet I persisted in these beliefs.”

“And you don’t question them?” She looked a skeptic. There was a thirst of knowledge radiating through the depths of her mind, as he tempted the young Padawan into a wayward behavior and with an imposing effect on her integrity.

She found her eyes picking him apart with curious tendencies.

Ren settled back into himself with a calming breath and entwine his gloved fingers at the base of his hips, and Ren sighed, “you’re an exhaustion. Sometimes _I_ question why I visit you.” His sharp jaw leaned upward and his eyes glare at the ceiling as if he pondered in thought, “and sometimes I question why I tell you these things.”

“Why do you?” Rey responded with her own point of issue; this was something difficult to answer as he remained silent and in reflection.

“Because I feel no one understands as  _we_  do—we Force sensitives.”

“Understand? You’re saying we understand each other?”

Ren leaned back into his seat and the fabrics of his attire scratched against the surface of the leather. He was a tall man. He looked as though he could partake in the Kessel run on his own two legs and still defeat the winner by record times. He crossed his body where one foot was over the other knee, which then forced her attention back to his face. Dark locks framed his ears and few danced along his high cheek bones.

“I can’t expect the next trooper to know what it feels like to wield the Force. But  _you_ —you I expect to understand.”

_The Dark Side._

“I’ve never used the Force that way.” Rey shook her head at the thought, knowing what he meant by that. And again, she said, “I’ve never used the Force the way you do.”

“Have you?” This was a rhetorical question she felt difficult to grasp.  He went on now, “you have a kind of potential I’ve never seen in anyone. You could be here. You could have the pedestal I’m standing on  _right_  now and worry yourself not of all your concerns. You could become my apprentice, though you choose to align yourself with the Light—”

“I don’t need guidance from the likes of you.”

_A monster._

“What does that make you?” Ren made way for the crippled Rey and a hand reached for hers, forcing her dainty finger to trace along the crude markings of his permanent scar. His other fingers wrapped gently around hers and held them in place. “Someone so innocent couldn’t be responsible for this, now could they?”

Her veins pulsed thunderously, a rush of hot blood making its way all over face. This man was a _murderer_.

_How dare he._

“That was in self-defense,” her voice shook and her hand retracted quickly away. “You were going to kill me. Who knows what would’ve happened in that forest? _To Finn?”_

“You’re right. I would’ve killed that boy if it weren’t for you.” The guttural tone in his voice only served to deepen, “though you knew your life hadn’t been at risk.” He said, a way to encourage her thoughts and offered momentary reprieve so that she may ponder his words. “I was an excuse that allowed for you to exploit your rage.”

Everything that he said was all so that he could make her seem like him. She secured a life vest to prevent floating adrift the dark sea. This was what _he_ created. This wasn’t her. This was not the true perception she harbored about the world, rather something forcefully planted in the back of her mind.

“I am _nothing_ like you.” She seethed.

“Or so you say,” Kylo Ren continued and began to peruse around the room. “You wanted to kill me for your own pleasure. Or maybe you thought you would derive some kind of gratification from using the Force against me,” he speculated onward, “though you never meant to save your skin or be the valiant hero. You’re _just_ a pretender.”

Her instinct had been to reach for her lightsaber but felt nothing but the swipe of air past her waist.  _Muscle memory_ , Rey pleaded to the Gods that it would be there despite her situation.

Her emotions were unbridled. It felt like something was constraining her senses and something vastly uncontrollable and incessant. A savage attack on her force of will to decide between what is right and what is wrong, something so foreign and unspeakable was rabid in her thoughts. It was something she wouldn’t dare repeat aloud.

“Even now I sense your bloodlust.” He turned his back in cogitative silence before speaking again. “You choose ignore its existence and mask it away—but I—I choose to bask in its warmth and glory. _That_ is how we differ.”

“Maybe—“ Rey interjected with the hope that this lie could plaster her vicious thoughts, “maybe the Force—“

“The Force?” He looked back at her through the corners of his eyes, his side profile strikingly sharp, “the Force what?”

“What happened to you,” Rey felt as though a knife were carving into her chest, “I would never do that to anyone.”

“But you did.” The stone was placed onto her chest again. “You proclaim to defend the Light and the ways of the Jedi. But with every strike we exchange I see more of who you are. You don’t think to protect. You think to destroy. Devour. Consume your past woes and convert it into raw energy. That isn’t the Force using you—that is how _you_ use the Force.”

Rey wanted to be intimidating and she extended herself upright just a bit more. The idea of scarring him once more had felt too appealing then, from the way he threatened her. Though she wanted to move, her legs felt numb and her abdomen had been wringing with the onslaught of pain. Her breathing fostered and her brows crinkled when she realized there wasn’t more she could possibly do.

He said, finally, facing her once again, “I see it all, with like eyes and like mind.”

He was an infuriating man who spouted nonsensical falsehoods. A man who lied to confuse the enemy into getting what he wanted.

“Why would I lie to you?” His nature was too shrewd and activating of her emotions. He had her on her toes (figuratively) and with a need to strike something. Something hard. “Why are you so defensive of the Light when I know, by your own thoughts, that you felt held back?”

An eruption of emotion had chained and squeezed at her heart, her voice heightened, “I’ve never felt held back!”

“Tell me then…” Ren paused intermittently, “why is it when you are not wasting in your own self-pity that you feel some kind of loathing?”

“I have every right to be mad at you,” Rey grit through the skin of her teeth. “Look, look at what you’ve done.” She gestured to her legs and there was certainly more she could offer as an example.

His eyes narrowed, “I haven’t done anything you haven’t done yourself.”

She wanted to blame him for it, but knew it hadn’t been his fault. Rey leaned back into the headboard and cushion of her pillow, “At least I haven’t killed my own father.  I know that much,” Rey glared back with detestation. She felt herself calm and as though she’d concluded this discussion with a prevailing voice.

He prepared his own retaliation, “yet you feel resentment enough for the family that abandoned you. Enough that you essentially killed them in your own mind.”

That struck a chord. How could he know? She felt such shame in these transient thoughts she buried them in the deepest trenches of her mind. She didn’t want to feel this way. She wanted to _hope_.

And with that, he’d left her to her own deliberations.

For a while, Rey was lying there with her mind in shambles. She was a cloud that had donned on a murkiness and was floating in a clearly divided sky, being enveloped by violent and more malevolent storm bringers. She was adrift in the middle—not sure whether to return to calm and peaceful brightness that it once came from and to the alluring, electrically buzzing side that flashed brightly with severity and beauty.

The back of her head lay flat, the pleats in her braid soundly pressing against her and the pillow as she glared up at the ceiling. Her eyes pranced about but her body remained painfully still, and her mind rolling over the entirety of her situation. 

Kylo Ren was certainly one to arouse hate within others. The only one he rushed to please was his so dearly cherished Supreme Leader while everyone else was expendable in his eyes. What made him want to be a master? To have students? To train someone to the utmost capabilities while he hadn’t been so perfect himself?

If she remembered clearly, her _true_ Master had once mentioned what the notorious Ben Solo had done to his Jedi academy years ago. What made this newly refurbished Kylo Ren so capable to train a young Padawan himself?

He would only be the flame to the canister of oil that she was.

He kept insisting that she had potential ready to explode, to be lit be him rather than be contained by Skywalker. But something made her think that she’d erupt in flames on this side of the battlefield. Her feelings quickly intensified with fear as she realized that maybe if she were to do something uncharacteristically light or something not according to his liking then maybe he’d kill her too?

She laid her wrist on her forehead and closed her eyes. A migraine snuck its way into her temple, whether it be because of stress or that damned Kylo Ren slipping into her thoughts. The numbness of her legs. Or trapped within the deepest confinements of the greatest military faction in the known universe. 

…

Rey was not a lasting weed; but a flower amidst destruction and barrenness and chaos. She was a delicate kind of light he hadn’t seen in a while. One that persevered.

He could sense her strife for the light and her desperate hands hungrily latching onto whatever righteousness she could find in herself. If she had anything to offer. He knew. He knew her more than she knew herself. Something in Ren had led him to believe she would recover through her own merit and strength of mind.

He walked in two days later, letting the door slide and lock into place behind him, he walked in with a stern kind of straightness to his body. She tensed to the sight of him and plastered a look befitting of the Scavenger he’d come to know.

Although she was condemned to permanency—for the time being—she had a healthier looking fullness to her. Her tanned cheeks were less hallowed and her lips appeared less dry and contained a certain fluidity to them; dehydration hadn’t made its presence anymore it seemed. He had never known starvation but this…this girl had convened with it with every waking hour of her life. She’d even dreamt of it and had nightmares of it.

He looked at her hands. They were delicate and complexioned with gold and freckles. This brought him back to the visions and so profound a dream it was he’d never forget it. He remembered looking through the eyes of this person, recalling how the lulling song of loneliness sunk in their heart.

He was lying in a pitiful hovel of a home, creating his own memories through a wandering gaze and a kind of anxiety that did not persist too far from himself. There were scraps and junk items; never thought to be useful to anyone who’d have lived a fair life and out of the clutches impoverishment.

Ren then remembered seeing dainty hands as if they were his own, slender and soft despite the conditions they had labored in. They were sun kissed and speckled. They were  _her_ hands _._  They grabbed something jagged with a metallic reflection, once discarded and now valued for. Then through this vision he considered the sheen of metal and back stared the eyes of this—this girl—whose muddled green eyes stung like a poisonous plant that sprouted through a rich earth. It startled him enough that he would soon be flung into his own reality.

She cleared her throat, “So. What now?” She looked at him as if she expected something. “What do I do with my life?” Ren noticed a lump bob in her throat.

 _What was this feeling?_ He felt something was coming. Through their bond, he could sense it like coldness on his bare skin, goosebumps forming in anticipation it felt. Ren furrowed his brows and waited for what was to come.

Her fists were bunching at the sheets and she glared up at him with a kind of sadness he’d often stumble upon himself, “I want to be free. I want to move—use my legs. Anything. I—“

Suddenly he was washed over with a wave of invigorating emotion. It was a blend of uninvited anger and desolation.

“Every day. Every hour and minute I spend here in this sorry state—I…. Do you understand what this feels like?” Her eyes shot toward him. He looked her down and understood her need to blame him for everything that had happened to her.

Tears were building in the water lining of her eyes and she refused to look at him before they spilt over. “I understand your strife, I understand your agony and your pain,” Ren unwarily tugged at the Force laced between them. “On that barren planet, for many years you survived alone and I  _understand_  it all.“

She looked at him.

 _Damn_. Let Vader take him. Those were words that shouldn’t have been spoken, he knew, and she felt suspicion enough to recoil and glare back with those incredulous eyes. What was she to think now? None of it had never been his intentions or in his control—the visions that had possessed him so relentlessly.

He continued before she dwelled too far into it. “Gather yourself. Gather your emotions.” He knelt beside her bed and peeled the bedsheets away. Then came the sight of her limp legs, fashioned in simple attire for those in rehabilitation.

“Get away—” Her breath paired with words and he sensed her heartbeat bound like an engine. She attempted to lift her frame above the bed and shrug her body away—but to no avail. She responded as though his actions would be suspicious, and he knew his presence was unwarranted but this  _must_  be done. He must help her. “Get  _away_  from me,” her demands rose the more he tried to soothe her.

“Calm yourself.” Ren bit into her worry and emitted tranquil notes interlace their bond, he felt himself tapping into a form of power he hadn’t done in a long while. A light feeling fluttered through and something akin to lifting a dead weight from his body or the awakening of something once fallen asleep.

_No._

_Not this._

It felt as though every organ inside his body had stopped functioning as he battled it—this  _Light_. He endured the internal conflict and sided with the Darkness within himself. He would utilize her emotions and construct upon them to heal the girl, this was his repentance and reparation for the damage he’d done.  _For the time being, this should work_ , he surmised.

On his knees he remained by the Scavenger and instructed her to lean forward far enough to allow him access. A gloved hand made way to the injury on her spine and one clasped the underside of her stomach, concentrating on the internal damage. He felt her unease. After several, several difficult minutes, he slowly made rounds from the base of her waist to the ends of her toes.

“What is it that angers you?” The words spilt off his tongue as if they were to come from Master himself, he murmured, “what entices you?”

The Scavenger beheld him with disgust, however, her disparagement had been dismissed by the curiosity he felt. Now with her mental barriers fully lowered, he could peek into her mind, ruminating her thoughts and reliving experiences that aroused foul moods. He willed the heaviness in his own essence into hers.

Then he saw her shuttle of a home and the vastness of the desert where she spent a greater part of her life. The familiarity of abandonment, the scrapping with starvation and the strain of loneliness. The visions of battle divided his mind; the battle to live and survive and to remain strong throughout, and he saw flashbacks of a rather unpleasant looking creature and the desire for a better kind of future.

For a life with a family once forgotten.

He watched her shift uncomfortably and close her eyes in thought and pillaring her upper half unto the palms of her hands. The braid she sported had gone completely undone with the lack of maintenance, hazelnut strands swiping her elbows gently as she tempted to churn over her legs. He did what he must—and to recover her he must abide by all its rules. It wouldn’t last long but would do for now, and witnessed its effects as her toes twitched to life.

The tiny sprout within had branched further. Further and further it went—and he simply wondered whether it meant to end.

_This was it._

_The stain of Darkness._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you wondering why I've deleted this same chapter prior to uploading this one, I accidentally used the wrong version. Also, I would love to know what you think!


	4. The Revelation

The flowing of the Force.

Though vexatious it was a kind of power that she’d felt infiltrate her skin. And It was _exhilarating_. This gust of energy ingested every part of her being and its heaviness bubbled and simmered into the frontals of her mind. Two halves of her once severed now recoupled and reconnected. And she felt these nerves in the wake of resurrection.

“What did you…” Her mouth ended gaping in silent awe and her eyes travelled over her legs. She almost felt as though warmth was swirling through them, as well the ability to feel and percept the world through an outlet she had once forgone.

And in this moment, in this apex of disbelief, Rey allowed a moments glance at the phantom beside her bed. He looked discomposed.  Rey concentrated on her legs again and his hands retracted as if he knew what she planned to do next. She carefully nudged her body over the edge of the mattress, one leg at a time until she was certain her strength would not be sucked away once more.

Hips dragged over the sides of her bed and dare one step, bearing the remaining weight on her rear. She tested her bodyweight onto the other foot and elevated her hips despite the mumbling of her lower self. Her stomach and back wrung with rectified aches, and despite these distractions, she bolstered her intentions with a steel mind. 

She kept going until her body was awkwardly bowing backward with her weight rationed between the backs of her arms and thighs. Pushing forward from the tips of her fingers and balancing herself as best she could, a newfound freedom was awaiting her.

Ren caught her arms before she could get too far and collapse unto herself. Woolen fabrics were scratching against one of her cheeks the moment she landed face-first in his arms. He had a scent of sandalwood when she breathed in. With these distractions dancing away in her thoughts, she felt his voice rumble through his chest, “Careful.”

Irritation boiling within and heat rising to her cheeks, she leapt from his chest and landed on her backside. Was it in his own warped sense of justice to heal a cripple? Did he expect her to find loyalty with him?

She shrugged these thoughts to the back of her mind and found other ways to probe her curiosity. Rey lifted one leg in a meek attempt to level it, her control vacillated and the leg dropped to the ground in defeat. “I still can’t move.”

“You _can_ move—but this isn’t your ride to freedom.” He continued with an explanation on hand, “Let’s say that a mechanism does not utilize its parts for several decades. What do you think happens?”

Questioning her on the basics of machinery? She scoffed at him. “That’s easy. It erodes and needs to be upgraded as with anything else. What does that have to do with my situation?”

He continued with clarification, “When your muscles are not in use they wither away. And what you see now is exactly what has happened to you.”

She didn’t understand. If she were essentially a machine that has been ‘upgraded’ then why does it feel like she still had no control? What was he going on about?

“I can only reconstruct what had been there moments before,” she felt him scathe her mind and Ren explained eloquently, though his tongue sharp. He paused to offer a long glance at her legs, “you need to continue with these meditations to retain the ability to move. From now on you need to think _differently_.”

 “I won’t plan on it,” Rey said again now with a new mindset, “I don’t need you. And you can start by finding some other damned mind to prey upon.”

“Rey.” He leaned his jaw upward as though he meant to regain composure, there was a bob in his throat before he continued, “let me help you.”

Why had he shown such sympathy for her? Clearly, he could have cleaved her in halves, the way he did with the first medical droid that had taken care of her.

Rey inhaled and found her eyes looking round the stark whiteness of her treatment bay, at least her eyes wouldn’t have to look upon him for the time being. He left the room when he realized she was ignoring him and the door locked out of and in place and his cape billowed wayward.

_He offered to carry her back to bed._

_How embarrassing._

She pulled herself onto the bed with strength in her arms and wobbling in her legs.

Rey often eyed the empty silhouette of him even though he had been gone, and the sight of the Dark Lord had been shut out by a measly door. It would be her company for now—and her reflection in its satin-shined surface however distorted was clear enough to generate a sensation of relief, that she was still the same old Rey.

She felt she was a machine with designs in place and faulty parts to completely ruin the entire scope of herself. She wanted her legs back and she wanted to be _good_. Then she realized that these things could never go hand in hand. Darkness was warping her judgement. It was getting her emotional and unethical. She can’t become someone like him.

She can’t let it take over.

A few days later, he’d come to visit.

Rey heard an in punch of security codes and came Kylo Ren, brusque in his movements.

“What?” The sharpness in her voice was uncanny.

Ren casually strolled through the room and helmet once again set aside in its usual position. Rey glanced at it and returned her sights to the Dark Lord.

What in the seven kriffing hells was he doing here? Walking in like he knew her so well? What if he walked in while she was changing her shirt?

Heat grazed against her skin, “I want you to get out.”

He glared at her for a moment. When Rey heard him speak, he often sounded as though something was stuck in the back of his throat, guttural or even melancholic.

But now his tone themed thin and impatient. Annoyed even. “It’s gotten to the point where you’ve interrupted my meetings and meditations. Every conversation I have I can hear you in the back of my head. Speaking and arguing with none other being than yourself. You’re _loud_. You need to learn how to whisper, even in your mind.”

Rey bit back sarcastically. “Well aren’t you pretentious? Maybe you should learn to keep your wandering mind to yourself and we wouldn’t have to work with this wretched bond?”

“Wretched?” He drawled backward.

“Wretched is an understatement—to think I’m bonded to a temper tantrum having child—” Rey gave him the most intensive stare.

She meant in all seriousness here.

“You think I’m a child—” Ren asked inquisitively with a low drone to his voice, almost as if he were hurt.

He reacted with but a lean inward and a deep-seated inhale through the nose. The amount of times he’d had to have compose himself was astounding and Rey was surprised he hadn’t broken anything by now. She didn’t know she had this kind of poison festering inside but felt it satisfying. It affected him well.

He budged not and simply glared down at her. A sigh raced through his chest and he straightened himself. “Rey, you must realize the problem lies not with me.”

“Right, I’m the problem.” Rey forced a swallow. It felt like a hand closed around her windpipe and she knew she’d been doing it solely. “Get out.” Before things had gotten out of hand, and afraid she’d burst into flames, had he not left the room soon.

He didn’t move.

She seethed finally, “Get. Out.”

And he listened.

…

“What happened to her?” Luke said through his commlink, his aged voice buzzing in Leia’s ears.

There was a pause before his sister responded, her voice croaking as if she’d been crying for the past few hours. “They’re gone… Luke. They’re both gone.”

It wasn’t in his nature to express his emotions so thoroughly, but at that point he sounded desperate and disappointed altogether. “What happened?” The Jedi master repeated. He wanted to know exactly what he did to her. 

“Rey was injured severely on the battlefield, though it was reported to me that it had come from a lone Stormtrooper.”

“And then?”

“She was taken alive—“

“Then there is still a chance.” Luke responded and found resolve finally.

She’d already lost countless and now that she’d lost Rey—she couldn’t withstand it any longer. Her hand travelled to her chest and her fingers clenching inward ever so slightly. There were thoughts aplenty to grieve.

She heard his melancholic sigh in response and he continued slowly. “I shouldn’t have sent her there. I should have known she wasn’t ready. She is injured and taken prisoner. For that I am responsible. But,” he paused, waiting for the right words to fall on the tip of his tongue. “These things do not happen without reason. “

“Luke.” Leia interrupted, “what can we do?”

…

One certain night after finishing her evening meal, Rey felt innumerable pain in her legs scaling up her body. The numbness was returning. The depression was returning. And its pursuit selfishly made its way further up her body until its suffocation had brewed, what she thought, was a kind of insanity she’d never seen her.

Her breathing heightened critically and the back of her head burned. And then, she knew by the graces of Light and the seductresses of Dark, that her emotions were eating her alive.

She had to move.

_She had to do something._

Yanking off the sheets, Rey thoroughly yanked her body to the side of the bed and thudded on the metal paneling. With a tolerable groan she towed through the callous coldness of the floor, her skin shivered and her legs dragged behind.

By the time she reached the entrance to her treatment bay, her clothes had been lopsided and unfitted as they griped against the floor. Her arms sore with the burden of the deadened half body, she shrugged it off and reached so desperately for the bed of security numbers.

Sometimes she would catch the pattern of movements with Ren’s finger and she copied it in any way she could. Access could be denied only so much before a trooper or droid would be alerted and she stopped before that could happen.

Maybe she could reach into his mind? Maybe if she somehow peeked inside and the answer would be right there waiting for her? It wouldn’t hurt to try. And she did. She searched for their connection and subtly traversed alongside it.

She was on a boat and the current had drifted her along. There was no engine to make noise. There were no sails to flap and guider her through the wind. And finally, letting the path have its course with her, she found her vessel resting in the bay of another mind.

His mind.

It felt heavy. She compared it to breathing in the atmosphere of Jakku where the air was stale and felt it difficult to circulate throughout her chest. The innate Scavenger inside and the desire of exploration had compelled her to go onward. She perhaps scratched the outers of his mind, it felt. But it wasn’t guarded.

Was he sleeping?

He had to have been.

Otherwise he would have clawed her away long before she reached the workings of his mind.

And all she needed was the code.

_And for what?_

At the moment that was _all_ she needed.

Feeling for every crevice of weakness in his mind she searched long. Finally finding an opening she dove in and then slowed her search, if he were to discover her presence before she found it.

And there it was. Sitting with a jumble of other mechanistic information that she casually skimmed over. Mind reading, she felt, would not be an ability exclusive only to the Dark Side if it had been used for good means and ends. Uneasiness swelled and she found herself crawling back out too quickly to be unnoticeable to even a sleeping mind.

Her movements and thoughts growing unreasonable; she ceased within herself. What could she do with a code but lack autonomy to utilize it? Her mind felt crumbling within. An uncertain mind, perhaps, gave way to an uncertain existence and uncertain perception of reality.

…

“What are you planning to do to us?”

“That’s none of your business, resistance scum.” Said a trooper through the wall, one and the same as the other standing beside him.  “A traitor like you has no say aboard the Finalizer. You belong to the General now.”

Finn wanted to bargain his way out of this but any ideas of a favorable outcome were nearly impossible. He laid his hands against the cool metallic surface as the ridges of the panels welded together rested against his palm.

The last time he’d been inside this ship was when Han Solo… had died. And when he’d seen Kylo Ren’s face for the first time. He was possibly the first trooper among the lower ranks to have ever caught a glimpse upon such a prevalent and entirely enigmatic figure. But he was just some normal looking guy. No heavy burns, no crazy tattoos or even an aged old man he expected the Master of Ren to be. Even he could have been assumed as a regular, a worker or trooper without his helmet, passing by in the commons area only to grab lunch after long shift.

He sighed as a horrible feeling sunk in his heart.

He clenched his fist and slammed against the metallic door, a powerful echo reverberating throughout the tin box of cell.

“You’d best quit it with all the noise.” Demanded the voice from the other side, threatening the prisoner with heavy pound against the door. “Or you’ll find yourself in a cell much tighter than the one you’re in right now.”

He rested his forehead against the sheer, cold and biting surface and closed his eyes to the silence of the prison block.

“You’re lucky to even be alive, 2187.” The other trooper’s voice reminded him quietly. “You’d be rotting in the soil of some lesser planet had it been me in charge of the mission.”

He sighed.

What was to become of him now? And Poe… where did they put him?

Where was Rey?

…

There was something she certainly didn’t want him to know and that was she was losing her grip. And he would inevitably use it against her.  Despite her inclinations, she felt him suspicious of her and often showered her with curious stares. Rey made sure to barricade her mind before saying something awfully foolish to herself.

He’d come to visit her one early morning. There was a puffiness under his eyes and she’d known that was the look of someone who’d woken up not too long ago. It was as if she’d been on his mind far too often, he could not care for a meal before he’d made his rounds to visit.

“Tell me, Rey,” Kylo Ren started in a throaty voice, “what is it like to be wasting away in such foolish stubbornness?” He’d been leaning against a tallboy with his helmet suspended at the base of his palm.

“It feels fantastic.” Her retort was quick on the lips, “it also feels fantastic to know that Luke doesn’t have to worry about me.” She understood what he had utilized to gain her back these legs and was clearly stricken with a moral code.

Somewhere, despite the distance, Luke would become aware of her. If she were to think even for a second—even consider it momentarily— he would know. His own pupil would consider the Dark Side for her own selfish gain. 

“Is that what you think?” The honey brown in his eyes was smoldering, “you don’t want to _worry_ your Master who is indisputably another system away from you? Sitting in his stone grove and eating insects and wondering what his precious Rey is doing?”

“Well unlike you, I have honor to uphold.”

“Is that honor of yours so strong you’re willing to throw away your own life for it?”

“It means _something_.”

The stringing of the bond shifted once again and she could feel him adjusting his thoughts. “Really? Then why is it that I felt you prying through my mind yesterday?”

He rammed her into place with that arrogance of hers. She felt cheated.

“That was just a dream. You were just imagining it.”

From the peripheries of her vision she could see him appear suddenly beside her, a gloved hand guiding its way towards her face. It was softer now and it gently encompassed her chin. He lifted her face to greet his.  Lips were petrified still and her mind in constant conjecture as to what Kylo Ren’s intentions were. Her heart felt shocked into stillness for one excruciatingly long moment.

“Don’t lie to me,” Ren deflected before she could spout anything else. “Getting into my mind is not as easy as one would think. Did you not think it would be difficult?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Fingers slipped from her chin and drooped at his sides. She worked hard not to concentrate on his hand, “I’ve always wondered what you would do if I let you in again.”

“If you felt anything it might have been an accident—“

“Rey,” he looked her down, “the future swelters with possibilities and unforeseen happenings. It is _you_ who chooses to strangle yourself with this kind of life. _No one else._ You’re going to lose your freedom and you choose death above it all.”

“Maybe death is better—“

He quickly cut her in and disappointment was ringing in every word, “death is final and results into the nothingness of your own mind. Is that what you want?” That was a rhetorical question, apparently.

A familiar pain her squeezed at her chest.

“I know your reluctance but I am willing work with you. Rey, you _must_ listen to me and continue these healings.”

“And,” Rey paused as to some dramatic effect, “why should I?”

“If you continue down the path of the Light you will rid soon your legs and it _will_ sicken the rest of you, _permanently_.” Rey looked him down with a kind of fear she’d rarely come to terms with. “You _must_ trust me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, sorry for the extended wait guys! I had alot going on and I appreciate the kind comments! I would love to know what you think of this chapter and any criticisms are welcome here :)


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